As part of the QualityRights initiative, the World Health Organization (WHO) has developed a new comprehensive training, guidance and assessment package materials.
The materials together with slider sets, was launched on Wednesday 27th November 2019 by the World Health Organization via it’s website.
The launch event officially birthed the QualityRights country implementation portal (see here https://qualityrights.org/ ), showcasing all that’s happening with regards to QualityRights around the world.
Reference materials to build capacity
According to WHO, the training and guidance materials will serve as a reference towards building capacity among mental health practitioners, as well as people with psychosocial, intellectual and cognitive disabilities, people using mental health services, families, care partners, self help groups and non governmental organizations, on how to implement a human rights and recovery approach in the area of mental health in line with the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD).
The materials currently available here, covers areas such as;
Training
- Human rights.
- Mental health, disability and human rights
- Legal capacity and the right to decide
- Recovery and the right to health.
- Freedom from coercion, violence and abuse.
The specialized training materials also include;
- Recovery practices for mental health and well-being.
- Strategies to end seclusion and restraint.
- Supported decision-making and advance planning.
Guidance materials also involves;
- Peer support groups by and for people with lived experience.
- One-to-one peer support by and for people with lived experience.
- Advocacy for mental health, disability and human rights.
- Civil society organizations to promote human rights in mental health and related areas.
Further included for service transformation, is the QualityRights Assessment toolkit and Person-centred recovery planning for mental health and well-being self-help tool.
In order to effectively and sustainably promote rights and recovery in all settings and at all levels, however, it is essential to improve knowledge, attitudes, and practices among all mental health and disability stakeholders, including people with psychosocial and intellectual disabilities. To date, however, widescale capacity building remains a major gap in efforts taken at the national level.
QualityRights Ghana
Ghana became the first country to roll out the QualityRights initiative nationwide with one of it’s ambitious goals of recruiting 50,000 users to the QualityRights online course.
It has since recognized 10,000 users sign up for the e-training programme with online coaching on mental health, human rights and recovery – a foundation course among key mental health and disability stakeholders including service providers. The e-training is routinely supplemented with a face-to-face capacity building within the limits of available resources.
Ghana extended it’s technical support to Kenya who recently launched the initiative in Nairobi alongside it’s first national mental health conference.
According to WHO, the initiative is currently being rolled out in more than 30 countries around the world.
The ultimate goal of WHO’s QualityRights is to change mindsets and practices in a sustainable way and empower all stakeholders to promote rights and recovery in order to improve the lives of people with psychosocial, intellectual or cognitive disabilities everywhere.
